Spent nuclear fuel rods and other spent nuclear materials, if not reprocessed, require storage for about 100,000 years until their radioactivity abates. No one is willing to guarantee that any geologic formation is absolutely stable for that period of time. Thus at present in the United States alone there is −45,500 metric tonnes of spent fuel rods cumulated after 40 years cooling in large water-filled cooling pools near operating reactors. This burden of nuclear waste will become largely unsustainable because the cooling ponds are not designed as facilities to permanently store the rods. European states, such as France, reprocess their fuel rods to recover fissile atoms such as unburned 235U and 239Pu. While that works for a while, there seems to be a limit of about three reprocessing passes before the spent rod becomes too contaminated with neutron absorbers. Reprocessing was ruled out in this country by President Carter because it recovers plutonium and therefore, represents a proliferation hazard. Chemical separation is a possibility, but it is extremely hazardous because of the intense radioactivity of the daughter products. There are two epochs that dominate spent rod storage—daughter product radioactivity and actinide/transuranic radioactivity. If the latter can be eliminated, the total storage time required would be reduced by at least two possibly three orders of magnitude.
Each 1000 MW nuclear power station in the U.S. produces about 30 metric tonnes of high level radioactive waste per year. There are about 104 U.S. nuclear power plants accounting for 20% of our electrical power that generate roughly 3,120 metric tonnes of spent fuel rods a year. The Department of Energy recently cancelled the Yucca Mountain Storage facility, and Secretary Chu has formed an esteemed commission to search for alternatives. But at present there is no means established for fuel rod disposal apart from the cooling pools at each power plant. Clearly opposition to the Yucca Mountain facility was centered on the stability of that formation over a significant geologic time (100,000 years).
Nuclear waste storage times over hundreds to a thousand years appear to have little opposition. Although nuclear power plant safety remains an issue in some minds, removal of the storage problem will be the great enabler of fission nuclear power—an available, reliable, constant, greenhouse gas-free power source. Naturally if the restrictions on nuclear power plant construction were removed by showing a clear and safe path for fuel rod treatment and storage, a large number of new jobs will be created and nuclear component industries such as N-rated precision valves as an example will be re-invigorated. More and better power plants will require improvement and better control of the national power grid and also provide a source of new jobs and industries.